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by Christine Bongers

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Oh my lordy, I need me a wolf! A soft-pelted shape shifting predator, with sexy librarian glasses when he's in his human skin. Toss in a medusa who serves cupcakes, a movie buff vampire and a blood prophet who charms elemental spirits with gifts of books, and you'd account for only a fraction of the appeal of this dystopian urban fantasy. Anne Bishop is my new literary crush with this addictive tale of Others versus Humans, where sweetness and humour leaven the gore of self mutilation and humans as prey. Smart, fresh and imaginative. Five stars.

His baby sister would have been able to identify the colour immediately from her once-unlimited palette of words. She had always insisted that only old farts like him wore brown; young pains-in-the-arse like her, apparently wore cappucino or pewter, mocha, chocolate and cream. Like life was a colour-coordinated coffee break.

The pretty feet wore oversize Haviana thongs and were hanging over the footrest of an old-style armchair. It reminded Nick of the Jason Recliner they’d given Pop, years ago, at his fiftieth birthday party at the Greek Club. The photo still sat on his desk: Pop stretched out in his best crimplene trousers, a mustard shirt and yellow tie, grinning like a happy Labrador surrounded by his wife, four kids and a room full of rellies. Back when he still had four kids, a happy bark and nights skittered by for all of them in the unconscious pleasures of sleep.

But this was no Jason Recliner. It was an old lady’s chair, wilting under a weight of flowers in a faded chintz fabric that no self-respecting Jason would wear in a fit. It didn’t suit the owner of the metallic toenails either.

She was the full coordinated coffee break, right down to the funky nerd glasses and spiky hair full of product. She was built like a refrigerator with a well-stacked freezer that someone had tried to defrost with a knife. It was still jammed in there, the black handle jutting out from the swirling layers of a frothy silk blouse.

Fardoulys’s chest tightened as the familiar anger welled up.

The surprisingly delicate feet didn’t belong here. In haviana thongs. On a floral recliner, on a murdered woman. They should be strapped into frivolous sandals that drew the eye away from the too-thick waist, the too-careful grooming. They should be lining up for a weekly pedicure. Or kissing up to a pair of $600 Sioux shoes on some big-bellied barrister under the sedate white linen skirt of a table for two in a swanky restaurant like Alchemy or Montrachet.

Nick noted the absence of any conventional rings amongst the jangle of jewellery on the dead woman’s hands and made his vow to one more member of the lonely dead: I’m here for you. I’ll find whoever did this so that you can rest in peace.

He needed to believe that he had never broken that promise; that the short list of names headed by his own baby sister was merely waiting patiently for him to deliver.